Are advanced driver assist safety systems really keeping us safe? How our obsession with new technology has made us less safe behind the wheel | Opinion

No-one ever wants to take responsibility for a car accident. But the accident I was involved in really wasn’t my fault - I blame the car.

I was involved in a typical commuter morning crash, the traffic slowed, I slowed too suddenly for the driver behind me and they crashed into the back of me. Legally speaking, the driver behind is at fault for not leaving a safe distance, but the truth is we’re all guilty of that, particularly on a weekday morning rushing to work.

Normally, I’d actually take some personal responsibility for causing the crash, by braking too hard and not giving the driver behind me enough time to react. Except it wasn’t me that slammed on the brakes - it was the car. Specifically, the car’s autonomous emergency braking system (AEB), which reacted faster than the person behind me could manage and resulted in a classic rear-end incident.

I was braking gradually, knowing that slamming on the brakes in peak hour traffic is not a good idea, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for the car. As soon as the car lurched to a stop I knew I was in trouble and actually had my foot on the accelerator at the moment of impact. I was desperately trying to avoid the inevitable hit from behind, but the car wouldn’t let me. 

A car accident is called that because that’s what it is - an accident. No-one deliberately sets out to crash into someone else, it’s typically just the result from a series of unfortunate events. But the rise and rise of ‘driver assistance’ technology has begun to blur the lines between responsibility for actual control over the car.

Let me make this clear from the beginning - I love safety. I think cars should be as safe as they can possibly be and we should be striving to reduce accidents and injuries on our roads. 

In recent years I’ve likely been saved a few blushes from cars alerting me to something ahead, but this latest incident is not the first time a so-called ‘safety’ system has put me in a precarious position.

A few years ago, when these systems were still in their infancy, I had a car suddenly hit the brakes to avoid hitting the concrete divider between my side of the road and the other. The only problem was, I could clearly see the concrete wall and was in the process of steering the car around the bend. Fortunately, in that instance I was able to override the AEB and avoid a major pile-up on a busy road.

Now I’m not for one second suggesting we start pulling these systems out of cars and going back to 100 per cent relying on us humans behind the wheel. Frankly, that time has passed as we’ve now all become too dependent on them.

Instead, we need to ensure that the carmakers continue to refine and improve these systems, while at the same time we, the drivers, continue to take full responsibility for the car. That line has become blurred in recent years as more and more autonomous technology enters the vehicle. I’ve written it before and I’ll keep writing it, calling something ‘autopilot’ and then expecting the driver to read the fine print to understand that’s not what it is, is not a good idea.

As I’ve also written countless times across many new-car reviews, much of this technology is still a work-in-progress. Lane keeping assistance that’s too jerky and randomly intervenes, blind spot monitoring that’s constantly flashing, driver attention systems that become distracting, these are just some of the issues we’ve faced in recent years as technology tries to make the driver redundant.

So what’s the solution? Like I said earlier, we can’t go back now. These systems will get better and hopefully people won’t get put in a position like I was, trying to regain control of a car to avoid an accident. I was fortunate the car behind me wasn’t going very quickly and it was just a low-speed hit. We’ve seen far worse examples of technology going wrong in recent years and it has led to fatalities.

Of course, we, the human drivers, need to have control over the car regardless of how many autonomous functions it has installed. We need to be paying attention and avoiding situations that could be problematic, and that will mean making sure we accommodate extra room for these systems to react.

The idea that technology will save us all is great in theory, but I'll start believing my car’s computer can save me when my home computer stops crashing…